Situated Research's Blog

I joined YouTube in 2005, back when it was cool and you could actually find interesting content. At the time, I was most interested in indie-acoustic guitar covers and performances of aspiring artists.

Now YouTube is clearly aimed at and for professionals and it’s dominated by major brands and labels. This is problematic for the average person or professional starting to build a fresh audience and competing with people who manage their channels full-time and have a staffs seems imposing to say the least. Read more »

As online marketers become more aggressive with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaigns, there can become a point at which businesses begin to over-optimize. When focusing purely on SEO, many companies lose sight of the end goal, which is to provide information to users.

Even when you are following all of the more recognized SEO rules, when is optimization overdone and how can you prevent this from happening on your website? Are there Tsunami warning indicators to get out of the game before Google’s next Panda or Farmer update? And how do you find the ideal balance for your site, not overdoing SEO but also not leaving organic search traffic to your competitors? Read more »

Few Web professionals should be surprised by the 2011 forecast in SEMPO’s recently released State of Search Marketing Report. If the words “social” and “mobile” are at the top of your business plan, pay close attention to the following.

If they are not, drop what you’re doing and pay even closer attention. Read more »

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are the only means by which any Web professional should be measuring SEO (Search Engine Optimization) success.

So, what are the right KPIs to use when measuring how well the techniques and tactics employed by in-house SEOs or consultants/agencies actually work? Today let’s look at a few important KPIs to monitor, whether on the front line or in the executive suite.

Before you begin digging deep into your analytics and working to understand the most essential SEO KPIs, recognize that their best use will ultimately be for learning what works and where a site/domain can be improved. The role of having (setting up and establishing) KPIs at all should be to provide empirical data as the site moves closer to the desired result. The goal is to disseminate meaningful information through the business/organization to facilitate communication and provide a basis for analysis and decision-making across all levels of the organization. Read more »

As social media keeps providing new marketing opportunities, in addition to a way for online users to simply pass the time, the need for social analytics is becoming more pressing.

Utilizing reporting tools that are available online today can help Internet marketers continue to shape their social media strategy and overall online interaction methods.

Some of the most important metrics to track when it comes to social media include the ROI – how time spent marketing on sites like Facebook and Twitter translates into revenue for the company – and the growth and interaction factors surrounding a company’s online profiles and communities.

Any metric can be broken down into granular parts for a closer look or to add quantitative micro-metrics to an overarching qualitative metric. For example, the number of links acquired on shared or viral content pages via social media is a key factor for the SEO-minded. Read more »

We hate math.

Our abhorrence for calculation enables us to mutually agree on statistically dubious metrics with nary a shrug or arched eyebrow. Consider Nielsen ratings, which are used to determine the popularity of all TV shows and, consequently, how the dozens of billions of dollars in TV advertising is apportioned. Read more »

There are many simple and easy ways to boost your rankings in search engines so that more people will visit your website. Some search engine optimization (SEO) methods are out-dated and others are just plain shady (e.g. ‘black hat SEO’ tricks such as link farms).

We will discuss seven of the best organic”white-hat” methods of SEO: things you can do for free to achieve higher search rankings (rather than paid options such as pay-per-click advertising). Read more »

How many times have you heard someone say, I just want that top search result on Google? For a business website, the top spot in the search engine returns can be a lead generating machine.

Think about it. Google is where most people go when they are researching. What if there was a way to get your company’s website on that first page?  Well there is…

One of the best ways to gain that top spot is by blogging. Incorporating a blog into a website can have a huge impact on the overall website’s search engine rankings. Read more »

Research published by analyst firm Access Markets International Partners shows that almost 70 percent of small and medium businesses actively use social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to promote their companies. But simply posting what your CEO had for lunch isn’t going to do much to help move your business forward. Smart companies are tactically using social media tools to increase their exposure to potential customers.

We’ve compiled ten of the most compelling reasons that you should consider using social media tools to promote your business. Read more »

Is your company really ready to interact with customers–and critics–online?

Greenpeace’s organized brandjacking of Nestle SA’s Facebook page is making CMOs afraid of social media. There is good reason for this: The power has clearly turned to those that participate, and now detractors are starting to organize using the same organized marketing campaigns that companies create. Read more »

The importance of search engine optimization is well known to most business owners. What is equally well known is the fact that good optimization advice does not come cheap and bad advice comes cheap but costs a lot in the long run (think websites getting banned on Google).

While targeting the most popular keywords in competitive sectors might no longer be feasible for most new businesses on a tight budget, there are still numerous options available to such businesses.

A lot of the opportunities arise from Google’s Universal Search concept, where regular organic listings are mixed in with other search results such as images, videos, maps and so on. Read more »

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is concerned with helping to raise your website on a list of returned results when people perform a search for your business. In other words, when customers search on Google for a business like yours, how far down the list will your business appear? The closer to the top, the more likely potential customers are to visit your website. Read more »

Your website is designed, the CMS works, content has been added and the client is happy. It’s time to take the website live. Or is it? When launching a website, you can often forget a number of things in your eagerness to make it live, so it’s useful to have a checklist to look through as you make your final touches and before you announce your website to the world.

This article reviews some important and necessary checks that web-sites should be checked against before the official launch – little details are often forgotten or ignored, but – if done in time – may sum up to an overall greater user experience and avoid unnecessary costs after the official site release. Read more »

Work with a reliable web-design company that can help you meet current and future needs.
by Michel Ann Sharritt

People are often in a rush to get something, anything, up on the Internet. Because the average business owner is inexperienced at web design and related terminology, website companies that are anxious to offer a cheap, yet profitable (to them) service, bring up a website on the Internet that may or may not help the client generate additional revenue: the goal of commercial websites. Read more »